The parturograph is a composite record designed for the monitoring of fetal and maternal well-being and the progress of labour. It permits the early recognition of abnormalities and pinpoints the patients who would benefit most from intervention. Observations are made from the time of admission of the mother to the caseroom and recorded graphically. Factors assessed include fetal heart rate, maternal vital signs and urine, cervical dilatation, descent of the presenting fetal part, and frequency, duration and intensity of uterine contractions. (+info)
Effects of long-term administration of clonidine on plasma renin activity.
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Plasma renin activity (PRA) was studied before and during long-term treatment with moderate oral doses (0.2 or 0.3 mg/d) of clonidine. Nine outpatients with essential hypertension received clonidine for 12 weeks; a significant decrease in blood pressure was evident in all patients. Except for a nonsignificant increase after 12 weeks of treatment, PRA values were not notably changed by clonidine therapy. No correlation was found between individual blood pressure changes and PRA variation during the study. The absence of a net effect on PRA in this study does not exclude more complex interactions of clonidine with the renin-angiotensin system. Nonetheless, clonidine cannot generally be classified as a "renin-inhibiting" drug. (+info)
Electronic volume analysis of L1210 chemotherapy.
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The rapid analysis of in vivo chemotherapy on the L1210 ascites tumor grown in C57BL/6 X DBA/2F1 mice has been shown by means of an electronic volume analysis. The drugs were injected on the 4th day of tumor growth, and the cells in the peritoneal cavity were studied at 24-hr intervals on the 5th through 7th day. Using the electronic cell volume distributions, combined with labeling indices, cell morphology, and cell counts, it was found that the alkylating agents. 1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea and cyclophosphamide, at the dosages used, were more effective than the S-phase-specific drugs, palmitoyl ester of 1-beta-D-arabinofuranosylcytosine, vincristine, and methotrexate. (+info)
Long-term transplantability and morphological stability of three experimentally induced urinary bladder carcinomas in rats.
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Three transitional cell carcinomas induced in Fischer 344 rats by a methylcholanthrene pellet or a foreign body inserted locally into the bladder have been serially transplanted in the syngeneic strain for up to 6.5 years. There have been no changes in the individual morphological characteristics of the tumors during this time. Cells cultured in vitro for varying numbers of passages reproduce regularly the morphology of each tumor when they are injected back into the animals and results from a microcytotoxicity assay for cellular immunity indicate that they retain a common, bladder tumor-specific antigen. These tumors are useful for research in turmo biology and are offered to other scientists seeking transplantable carcinomas for experimentation. (+info)
Ambiguity of the thymidine index.
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The observed thymidine indices of seven experimental tumor lines are compared as a function of duration of emulsion exposure. The effects of dose level of tritiated thymidine and background threshold are also evaluated. The results indicate that an arbitrary high background threshold discriminates against "lightly" labeled cells at short periods of exposure but that the chosen threshold becomes less critical with longer exposure. The observed thymidine index increases with increasing duration of emulsion exposure but appears to approach a plateau for all tumor systems. The "thymidine index curves" are significantly different for each tumor. There is an inverse relationship between the dose of tritiated thymidine and the duration of exposure required to recognize the same fraction of cells as labeled in a given tumor. Similar experimental conditions do not necessarily guarantee a valid basis for comparison of observed thymidine indices among tumors. (+info)
Quantification of baroreceptor influence on arterial pressure changes seen in primary angiotension-induced hypertension in dogs.
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We studied the role of the sino-aortic baroreceptors in the gradual development of hypertension induced by prolonged administration of small amounts of angiotensin II (A II) in intact dogs and dogs with denervated sino-aortic baroreceptors. Short-term 1-hour infusions of A II(1.0-100 ng/kg per min) showed that conscious denervated dogs had twice the pressor sensitivity of intact dogs. Long-term infusions of A II at 5.0 ng/kg per min (2-3 weeks) with continuous 24-hour recordings of arterial pressure showed that intact dogs required 28 hours to reach the same level of pressure attained by denervated dogs during the 1st hour of infusion. At the 28th hour the pressure in both groups was 70% of the maximum value attained by the 7th day of infusion. Both intact and denervated dogs reached nearly the same plateau level of pressure, the magnitude being directly related both the the A II infusion rate and the daily sodium intake. Cardiac output in intact dogs initially decreased after the onset of A II infusion, but by the 5th day of infusion it was 38% above control, whereas blood volume was unchanged. Heart rate returned to normal after a reduction during the 1st day of infusion in intact dogs. Plasma renin activity could not be detected after 24 hours of A II infusion in either intact or denervated dogs. The data indicate that about 35% of the hypertensive effect of A II results from its acute pressor action, and an additional 35% of the gradual increase in arterial pressure is in large measure a result of baroreceptor resetting. We conclude that the final 30% increase in pressure seems to result from increased cardiac output, the cause of which may be decreased vascular compliance. since the blood volume remains unaltered. (+info)
Acute and chronic dose-response relationships for angiotensin, aldosterone, and arterial pressure at varying levels of sodium intake.
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We examined the acute and chronic dose-response relationships between intravenously infused angiotensin II (A II) and the resulting changes in arterial pressure and plasma aldosterone concentration at varying levels of sodium intake. Sequential analysis of plasma aldosterone at each A II infusion rate resulted in an acute dose-related increase in plasma aldosterone which was markedly attenuated after the first 24 hours of infusion, the final level being directly related to the dose of A II and inversely related to sodium intake. A II infused at 5,15, and 23 ng/kg per min was associated with an initial increase (2nd to 8th hour) in plasma aldosterone to 2,6, and 9 times control values, respectively, in dogs receiving 40 mEq Na+/day. But, after the 1st day, aldosterone averaged only 1, 1.7, and 3 times control values for the next 2 weeks at the same rates of A II infusion. Dogs receiving 120 mEq Na+/day during A II infusion exhibited only a transient increase in plasma aldosterone during the 1st day. Sustained hypertension developed over a period of a week at all doses of A II at normal and high sodium intake, but did not occur at any dose of A II in sodium-depleted dogs. Increasing sodium intake from 40 to 120 mEq/day resulted in higher levels of hypertension, 125% compared to 140% of ocntrol values for dogs infused with A II, 5.0 ng/kg per min. We conclude that primary angiotensin-induced hypertension need not be associated with increased levels of plasma aldosterone, which appears to remain elevated only with amounts of A II greater than those required to sustain a significant degree of hypertension. (+info)
Anti-heart autoantibodies in ischaemic heart disease patients.
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One hundred and ninety-nine ischaemic heart disease (IHD) patients were studied with regard to the prevalence of anti-heart autoantibodies (AHA). The incidence of AHA in IHD patients was 1%: one out of 102 patients who suffered acute myocardial infarction (AMI), one out of seventy-two patients who suffered from acute coronary insufficiency (ACI), and none out of twenty-five patients with other signs and symptoms of IHD, had AHA in their sera. An additional 2% of patients who suffered from AMI developed detectable antibody levels during a follow-up period of 15 days. In comparison,, 53% of patients (eight out of fifteen) who underwent heart surgery and who had no AHA prior to operation, developed these antibodies in their sera during 1-2 weeks following operation. (+info)